Clay Enos was intrigued when his friend Zack Snyder first told him about the new movie he had signed on to direct, Watchmen, even though he had never read the acclaimed graphic novel on which the film was based.

“When I first heard the words ‘The Comedian’ and ‘Edward Blake’ and ‘Ozymandias’ and all these crazy names,” recalls Enos, a photographer, on the phone from Los Angeles, “I didn’t know what they were talking about.”

Enos, the production’s official still photographer, is probably not the only one. The long-awaited big-screen adaptation of Watchmen hits theatres on Friday, but the superhero stars of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ landmark 1986-1987 series are hardly recognizable figures, let alone household names. Passing a Watchmen movie poster featuring the image of Nite Owl, a friend remarked to me: “I didn’t know there was a new Batman movie.”

The characters in Watchmen have less star power than the Justice League, lack the TV and movie franchises of a property such as X-Men and are less fantastic than, well, The Fantastic Four. But after years of rumours, delays, and false starts, the heralded comic book series — Time magazine named it one of the 100 best novels of all time — is finally making the leap from page to screen. While it is the season’s most buzzed-about film, there is still a large segment of the population whose only exposure to Watchmen is through the trailers and posters, having never read the comic. They may be in for a rude awakening.

“It’s going to be weird, because I think they’re going to be expecting another Batman,” says George Zotti, manager of Toronto’s Silver Snail Comics. “That’s not what they’re going to get. It’s going to be a little bit of a slap in the face for people who are just looking for a heroes-in-tights thing, because it’s not.”

While the film’s marketing campaign has done a solid job of introducing the characters — one of the more popular viral videos currently online is a fake 1970 news report chronicling the “birth” of Doctor Manhattan — we figured a cheat sheet was in order, so you can sound smart standing in line for a ticket on Friday. Therefore, the National Post presents an beginner’s guide to the main characters of Watchmen.

First off, keep in mind that Watchmen is set in an alternate reality. It is 1985, the Cold War is ongoing and Richard Nixon is still President. And while it’s a super-hero film, the film lacks super-heroes. “This isn’t about super-heroes. This is a science-

fiction story of an alternate reality, that happens to involve costume characters,” said Dave Gibbons, Watchmen’s illustrator, in an interview with the Post last November.

The Comedian Real name: Edward Blake

While the 1977 Keene Act outlawed all “costumed adventurers,” as a government agent The Comedian was exempt. Blake is not the nicest guy around — he tries to rape one of his fellow super-heroes — but fear not: He dies. Don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler: His murder kicks off the comic and (likely) the film. Says Zotti: “The Comedian [is] almost a real-life Captain America. What Captain American would have probably been. He’s a soldier and does what the government tells him to do.”

Ozymandias Real name: Adrian Veidt

He’s often referred to as the world’s smartest man. After retiring from crime-fighting in 1975, he built a formidable business empire. He often retires to his fortress in Antarctica, which is described as “opulent beyond the wildest dreams of Versailles.” A genetically-altered lynx named Bubastis keeps him company. He enjoys electronic music.

Rorschach Real name: Walter Kovacs

If Watchmen has a main character, the mysterious vigilante Rorschach would be it. A deeply troubled man — his mother was a prostitute and he was abused as a boy — he gets his name from the ink-stained mask he sports, hiding his true identity. The passing of the Keene Act only forced him underground; he is the first to learn of The Comedian’s murder, and concocts a conspiracy that his fellow super-heroes are being knocked off one by one. He keeps a journal. Says Zotti: “His vision of right and wrong is black and white. There’s right and there’s wrong and there’s no in between.”

Doctor Manhattan Real name: Jonathan Osterman

In a series about super-heroes, Manhattan is the only one with actual super powers. And as with all super-heroes, he has an origin story: Osterman was a scientist before accidently locking himself in something called an “intrinsic field centre” when trying to retrieve his coat. His atoms are zapped by particle cannons, and though his co-workers think he’s dead, he returns as an all-powerful being. He becomes a weapon for the U.S. government, tipping the balance of power between the Soviet Union and America. After colleagues accuse him of causing them to develop cancer, Manhattan becomes persona non grata and exiles himself to Mars.

Silk Spectre I and II

Sally Jupiter was the original Silk Spectre, and one of the founding members of superhero group The Minutemen. Later, Laurie Juspeczyk follows in her mother’s footsteps as a crime-fighter, though she does it more out of obligation than anything. Laurie is romantically involved with Doctor Manhattan.

Nite Owl I and II

There are two Nite Owls, too. The first Nite Owl was named Hollis Mason. When Mason retired to write his memoirs, Under The Hood — a large portion of which is reprinted in Watchmen — a gadget-wiz named Dan Dreiberg asked if he could continue to fight crime under the Nite Owl name. Dreiberg pilots the Owl Ship. Zotti describes him as “basically Batman, but with even more issues.”

“I think that none of [the Watchmen characters] are whole, and I think that’s really interesting, and was definitely novel when the series was first created,” says Christopher Butcher, manager of Toronto comic store The Beguiling. “This idea of super-heroes that were not only flawed, but characters that weren’t all there, and [who] filled in the parts of themselves that weren’t there with being a super-hero. Whether that was looking for a family, or they were looking for friendship, or they were looking for sanity, they leaned on their costumes and this notion of doing right or doing wrong to get them through the fact that they couldn’t connect with other people any other way.”

There are also plenty of minor characters, including the Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis, Dollar Bill, Silhouette, and Mothman, though they mainly appear in flashbacks. Yet there’s no comic relief, like The Thing in Fantastic Four, and the film lacks the easily definable good and evil characters such as those found in the X-Men series. Watchmen is populated by anti-heroes.

“There’s no one to root for,” Butcher says. “Maybe you could root for the Nite Owl or Silk Spectre, but at the same time you’ve sunk pretty low if they’re your heroes.”

• Visit theampersand.ca on Friday for a full Q and A with Clay Enos, author of Watchmen Portraits (Titan Books).

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